Blaze

21. Better Off

Corpses. Corpses, hanging from trees like necklaces, leathery skin sticking to ribs like a wet shirt. Hair slapping faces that won't complain, flicking eyes that can't see.

The corpses are naked.

There's a lash on each of their shoulders. (Red and streaming.)

Disgust rises from within me, along with the deepest terror I've ever felt. It's like there's a black hole where my pulse should be, and it's sucking me dry from the inside.

The Raiders must have done something to keep the flies away. Something to keep the flesh from rotting.

God.

God, is that a child?

---

Calm down.

Her words wake inside me like the Captain's, though much less harshly. The transition from spoken word to thought is seamless. Stick the tube-needle into the right veins when she points at them, and set the machine to the right setting based on the person's weight and height when she glances at the black box at her feet and the paper cards stitched (stitched!) into the corpses' skin.

(I think she's dumbing down her speech to accommodate me.)

I swallow. Thinking back to her would feel strange (she might turn my thoughts upside down, yanking so hard she nearly uproots them in her urge for analysis, much like the Captain), but it would spare me the breath.

Please, I think.

I want to see Jackie and Austin. I want to reach for them. I need the bread because I'm afraid.

I look at the jumpsuit Alaina provided for me. At its sleeves and leg holes. In the light, it's unusually bright orange, with a tight hole at the neck. Zippered. It's not like any uniform I've ever seen. And I hate how it constricts me.

My decision is electric. Not a decision: a vow. The kind two people whisper to each other when they're half-awake, still heavy with the night, and end up remembering as a dream.

I'll find a way home. I'll leave here. I'll go back, and take Austin with me this time. Avoid the Blood Raiders. We'll find Dad, together, like we were meant to.

It's so simple.

Alaina looks over at me curiously. I know she understands my thoughts.

Maybe she's surprised I make no effort to hide them.

"I want the bread first," I say. I find that speaking out loud adds greater emphasis; I find that making bad vows lends me false courage. I'm filled with it: the worst kind of hope. "Or whatever you call it—the thing you made me eat."

It's not called bread.

"Whatever it is. I want it."

She says nothing. She looks at me, digging deep into my eyes. Maybe it's the warmth of the jumpsuit, or my newfound courage, but I'm not shivering anymore.

Another wave rides her eyes.

She laughs. The sound of it is small and sharp, like she's producing it from her nose; it comes in short bursts and she rocks with it, black eyes bulging with liquid in their sockets.